Welcome to the AAS

Founded in 1923 and now with over 600 members, the Auckland Astronomical Society is one of New Zealand's largest

We are based at the Auckland Observatory and provide for all levels of interest and expertise in astronomy. We are committed to educating our members in the science of astronomy and to keeping them up-to-date with current astronomical developments and discoveries.

The Society members provide voluntary support for the Stardome Observatory public programs.

Calling all Astrophotographers! The 2018 New Zealand Astrophotography competition is now underway, this year we have changed things up a bit, the first thing you will notice is the new name of the competition, this is to reflect that the competition has now been officially recognized and endorsed by the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand, of course contestants will still compete for the highly coveted Harry Williams Trophy which goes to the overall winner of the competition.

This year we are honoured to have Michael A Covington as our judge, Michael is a pioneer of DSLR Astrophotography and is also the author of the text book "Digital SLR Astrophotography" which for a lot of people was the first text book that helped get them started in DSLR Astrophotography, the book was released in 2007 by the Cambridge University Press and the 2nd edition of this book is slated for a 2018 release in November which will contain many updates and revisions, for more information please check out Michael's website here ... http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/dslr/index.html

This year there has been some rule changes so please read over the competition rules carefully.

For this years competition, we are happy to have Optolong Astronomical Filters sponsor the overall winner again with one of their wonderful filters offered as a prize ( filter type yet to be determined ), we are also happy to announce that Astronz will also be sponsoring the competition again with a $300 Astronz gift voucher offered for the winner of the Solar System category, Australian Sky & Telescope have also generously offered to sponsor the competition again with two one year subscriptions to their prestigious magazine for both the Deep Sky and Artistc / Nightscape categories, the Auckland Astronomical Society is also giving each category winner a $200 cash prize, with hopefully more sponsors and prizes to be announced later on, so keep an eye out for updates.

The competition cutoff date is the 25th of August, 2018 and the competition awards will be announced at the annual Burbidge dinner which is the Auckland Astronomical Society's premier annual event, keep an eye out on the society website for details on the forthcoming Burbidge dinner. Looking forward to seeing all your images and wishing you all clear skies.

A tutorial series covering many aspects of astronomy. This months topic is:

The History of Astronomy

Have you ever wondered who and how astronomers first made discoveries, and then how those ideas were built on to get where we are today with modern astronomy? Dr Bernie Brenner is going to give an overview of the entire history of astronomy, and will give you insight into this fascinating topic.